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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757961">Flesh and Bone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalgoldfish/pseuds/eternalgoldfish'>eternalgoldfish</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - No Upside Down, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Bisexual Billy Hargrove, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Dark Comedy, Enemies to Lovers, Gay Will Byers, Horror, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Mates, Mild Gore, One-Sided Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Pack Dynamics, Period-Typical Homophobia, Poor Will Byers, Post-Season/Series 02, Romance, Soulmates, Werewolf Billy Hargrove, Werewolves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:08:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,333</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757961</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternalgoldfish/pseuds/eternalgoldfish</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy pulled his own shirt over his head and gestured at his own arm, where he had three bands, two dull like aged tattoos and the top one, the thickest one, surrounded in itchy red. He pointed at the bottom one, the smallest one, said, “A mate mark.” Then the next. “Werewolf.” Then the next. “Alpha.”</p><p>Steve didn’t laugh, although he felt like it was burbling on the edge of his tongue, unhinged and wanting. “I’m not a werewolf.”</p><p>“And I wasn’t an alpha. Human mates in packs are rare, but they happen.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>234</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. (what are you afraid of?)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy Halloween month????<br/>I wrote a ficclet that more or less followed this trajectory about two years ago and have been saying since that I was going to write a whole fic of it. Well, the time has come.<br/>As a heads up, this fic does take some inspiration from Teen Wolf, but my representation of werewolves is kind of a weird mash up from all over the place.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There was something in the trees.</p><p>Will could sense it, something wrestling in the bushes as his bike shot along the road towards town, something snapping branches in the underbrush, just out of sight each time he dared look away from the road. Something was following him, gaining on him – toying with him? Something that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle like he had a rash, made the sweat on his skin feel sick and cold.</p><p>He pedalled faster, tried to tell himself the thumping he heard was just the beat of his own heart in his ears and not the heavy gait of some beast; that the shaking leaves was an illusion of the wind.</p><p>He just needed to get to Mike’s house. It was a mistake to ride by himself in the evening, when he should have asked to borrow the car. His mom was going to give him so much crap if she found out he’d scared himself so badly. <em>We got you your license for a reason! You’re seventeen, you should know better! </em>But it seemed like a good idea, when he was locking up the house and looking at how the yellow-pink fall sunset graced the tops of the trees. Maybe his mom would need the car later.</p><p>The sky was now orange, air too-crisp in his overheated lungs as he braced to try and gain more speed. The trees, still thick with overgrown branches and browning leaves, cast dark shadows over the concrete, hid bumps and cracks that rattled his grit teeth.</p><p>Then it struck. Agony bloomed.</p><p>Faintly, Will registered the ticking sound of his bike wheels rotating in the wind.</p><p> </p><p>Steve was going to throw up.</p><p>There was blood. So much blood. More blood than Steve had ever seen outside a horror movie, and he’d spent a lot of time playing sports that resulted in torn knees and broken bones.</p><p>God, he could <em>see</em> Will’s bones, where his shattered arm jammed out of his skin. His arm wasn’t even the worst of it, the part that made Steve want to hurl the most. Will’s shoulder was more gore than flesh, tacky blood smeared all the way up to his forehead where it plastered his sweaty bangs to his face. He whined and moaned as Steve dragged him, but he didn’t thrash, just let himself be draped like a lead cape over Steve’s shoulder as they made their way through the forest, Steve’s flashlight lurching around the trees ahead of them.</p><p>Steve wasn’t actually sure where they were, but he’d seen a gravel driveway right before his car ran over Will’s bike, so someone had to be nearby. God, Steve just hoped it was someone with a fucking phone. He hoped he was even going in the right direction. If he made it to his car instead, that would also be great, but –</p><p>Like a blessing, a trailer cropped up between the trees, a ratty old thing with a porch added on the front that seemed like it had seen better decades. Or maybe it was the shadows from the yellowed porchlight that made it look so old, so broken. Maybe it was the hair Steve couldn’t get out of his eyes.</p><p>Beside him, Will gave another violent shudder, keened like he hadn’t before.</p><p>“Harrington?” Someone said, before jumping over the porch railing. “Jesus Christ, what happened to him?”</p><p>Billy Hargrove had never looked so much like a saint in his entire fucking life.</p><p>“I don’t know—” Steve said, wide-eyed, out of breath. “I found his bike, and it was weird, so I went into the trees, and he was just – god, fuck, he needs an ambulance.”</p><p>“You didn’t take him to a hospital?” Billy asked, but he wasn’t turning back to the trailer to head to a phone, and it occurred to Steve that maybe Billy didn’t <em>have</em> one, which would be <em>just</em> their fucking luck.</p><p>Then Billy was in front of him, expression pinched and nostrisl flared, tongue darting out between his lips as he swore. Something in his face shifted, less confused, more angry. He grabbed Will from Steve’s side and hoisted him into his arms like the kid weighed approximately nothing, didn’t even flinch when Will started to screech and writhe, good fist smacking into Billy’s chest.</p><p>“You’re hurting him—”</p><p>“I’m <em>not</em>,” Billy said.</p><p>“Put him down.”</p><p>“I’m not fucking putting him down. You said he was in the woods?” Billy moved up to the porch and shoved open the door, Will cradled in one arm in a way that was <em>not normal</em>.</p><p>Steve dropped his flashlight in the grass. It was probably rude to follow Billy in without asking, but Steve didn’t think this was really an asking time.</p><p>Once on the couch, Will’s shrieking only intensified, limbs flailing as he gasped and bit his tongue. Billy scowled and pinned him to the seat, spared Steve a glance to say, “Go back outside.” He didn’t check to see if Steve listened.</p><p>Tension seemed to weigh Steve’s feet to the floor, fear and bile tangling his intestines around his other organs like jump-ropes holding him hostage. He couldn’t turn if he wanted to, heard his own gasp echo between his ringing ears as Billy’s face contorted in front of him, sharp teeth springing jagged from his lips as his features twisted into something feral, wolfish. His jaws clamped around the wound on Will’s neck with a guttural <em>crunch</em>.</p><p>The sound Will made was inhuman. It was the sound of death, or so Steve thought as he lurched forward. “You’re fucking killing him,” Steve said, aware of how fucked he was even as he slammed his hands down on Billy’s back. Aware of how badly he’d fucked up, bringing Will back to the beast.</p><p>In Billy’s arms, Will was panting and writhing, but his movements were starting to slow, like molasses over ice. Billy stayed where he was, despite Steve’s fists, until the cabin had quieted to small sobs and suspicious popping.</p><p>Billy pulled back and wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his shirt sleeve, right before Steve socked him in the eye.</p><p>“You fucking bag of dicks, he’s just a fucking kid, what is your fucking problem—”</p><p>“What’s my problem?” Billy grabbed Steve’s arm, grip too tight, bone-bruising. Even with his face back in order, his previous snarl nearly a fever dream, the press of his eyes still felt something deadly, dangerous. He was furious. “You’re the one hitting a werewolf.”</p><p>And that was. That made a lot of sense, actually. Steve wondered if he’d passed out in the woods and hit his head on a rock. That sort of misfortune felt far more on-brand than the reality in front of him, even if it wasn’t the first time he’d seen blood licking the tips of Billy’s blond curls. Werewolves weren’t real.</p><p>“You fucking killed him—”  </p><p>“I’m pretty sure I saved him—”</p><p>“That’s not what it—”</p><p>It felt like fire ripped over Steve’s arm, under his clothes, although Billy hadn’t moved. Steve shoved away from him and scrambled back, yanking his sweater over his head. Whatever was on him, it needed off, immediately.</p><p>It was Billy’s turn to take a sharp breath, his nostrils flared again as his eyes locked on Steve’s arm. There, red and blistering, was a thin black band burned around his bicep.</p><p>“Fuck,” Billy said.</p><p>Steve laughed, hysterical. Nothing made sense anymore. He was dead too. He was dead in the forest.</p><p>“Look, that’s,” Billy pointed, “That’s—would you stop fucking laughing?—this is fucking serious. That’s a mate mark.”</p><p>“It’s a what?”</p><p>“A mate mark—”</p><p>Beside Billy, Will was slowly moving again, curling into Billy’s side. It looked like his skin was crawling, like cockroaches were wiggling between the layers of his flesh. The popping was coming from him.</p><p>Billy pulled his own shirt over his head and gestured at his own arm, where he had three bands, two dull like aged tattoos and the top one, the thickest one, surrounded in itchy red. He pointed at the bottom one, the smallest one, said, “A mate mark.” Then the next. “Werewolf.” Then the next. “Alpha.”</p><p>Steve didn’t laugh, although he felt like it was burbling on the edge of his tongue, unhinged and wanting. “I’m not a werewolf.”</p><p>“And I wasn’t an alpha. Human mates in packs are rare, but they happen.”</p><p>“Okay, if that’s even true, or a real thing, or if werewolves even exist, then who does that make me the mate of?” Steve grimaced, “Will?”</p><p>Billy looked like he was going to gag, which was saying something considering the rest of the situation. “No, you moron. Mine.”</p><p>“<em>Yours</em>?”</p><p>“Do I seem fucking thrilled about this?”</p><p>Will moaned, just a sad, feeble thing, and twisted so his head was nearly in Billy’s lap. “Fuck,” Billy said, before pulling Will more upright to curve into his side. He looked to Steve. “You need to go outside.”</p><p>“No, I don’t think so,” Steve said, gesturing to Will, “Not until you tell me what the fuck is happening.”</p><p>“What the fuck does it look like? He’s turning.”</p><p>“You turned him?”</p><p>Will seemed to wince in response to their shouting, tucked his face nearly into Billy’s neck with a hiss.</p><p>“No, I didn’t fucking do it. My dad must have done it. I don’t even know what the fuck is going on.”</p><p>“Your dad? But you just bit him!”</p><p>“After he was already starting to change! I just took it over!”</p><p>“How?”</p><p>“<em>I don’t know</em>, alright? It was a fucking gamble on shit I’d heard about like, once. It just <em>seemed</em> like a good idea. The bite smelled fucking weird, like it wasn’t done all the way—”</p><p>“So it could have been reversed?”</p><p>If Steve didn’t already know that Billy thought he was one of the stupidest people on earth, the look Billy gave him would have really hurt his feelings. Billy said, “Jesus fuck, no. It would have killed him.”</p><p>With the way Will was shaking, it looked like he was going to die anyway.</p><p>“So what, he’s—there are werewolves, and you’re a werewolf? And now he’s a werewolf? And your <em>dad</em> is a werewolf?”</p><p>“How did you get a job in accounting?”</p><p>Steve was going to ignore that.</p><p>“Oh, sorry, excuse me getting world shattering news and needing a minute. So much for a <em>relaxing evening drive</em>.”</p><p>When Billy didn’t say anything to that, just pressed his nose to Will’s temple and grit his teeth like a fucking alien lifeform, Steve put his hands over his face. He said, “Why would your dad bite Will?”</p><p>“I already said I don’t know. I could smell him nearby and knew that he was moving around, but it’s his territory, he’s allowed to be all over it. I couldn’t tell he was doing this.”</p><p>“His territory?”</p><p>“He’s the alpha of the pack here. It’s why we moved.”</p><p>On the whole, Steve had spent a lot of time trying not to remember the first semester of his last year of high school. Losing his girlfriend to the school geek and getting the shit kicked out of him by the new kid didn’t make for fond memories. Which, “Wait, if you’re a werewolf, why am I not dead?”</p><p>Billy barked a sharp laugh, just one quick, dry sound. He said, “I was going easy on you. And my bitch sister tranq’d me, if you don’t remember.”</p><p>That November night in 1984, Billy had looked at Steve like he was a game. Nothing on his face looked playful, now. Billy smiled tight, like a man defeated, a man who knew he’d been fucked over, royally, and couldn’t do a fucking thing. “And now it turns out you’re my mate, so I’m <em>really</em> starting out strong with the wife beating.”</p><p>“What the fuck does that even mean?”</p><p>But Steve could feel the pull of something in his gut, a sting that wasn’t coming from the pulsing, rashy brand on his arm. It was like an itch of gravity, something that said <em>home</em>. A tug of primal ease. He wanted to yank it off his body and shake it like his sweater.</p><p>Billy said, like it hurt, “It means we’re going to have a great time getting lynched at our big fun faggot wolf wedding. I’d really been hoping my mate was going to be some blonde chick with big tits.”</p><p>Steve didn’t know why it burned so bad, when he’d never really thought of himself in relation to those terms before. Why it ached that Billy sounded like he hated him, when he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual. “We’re not dating,” Steve said, simply. “We’re not gay.”</p><p>Billy snorted, said, “<em>Mostly</em>.” He paused, almost too long, like he’d realized he’d shown his hand. Then, “Tell that to fate.”</p><p>“Even if there was some kind of—fate thing happening here, why would it be between us? You already have your stupid ring thing.”</p><p>“Because it’s obvious. You got the brand when I became an alpha. I can feel it. I can fucking smell it on you, even. You smell different.”</p><p>“That doesn’t make sense.”</p><p>“Magic clearly doesn’t fucking make sense, you dip-shit.”</p><p>“Is that really something you should be calling me—”</p><p>Will let out a loud, wet sob that was nearly a growl, teeth falling out of his mouth and into Billy’s lap.</p><p>“Go outside,” Billy grit out, hands splaying over Will’s back, “You don’t need to fucking see this.”</p><p>Part of Steve wanted to argue, still not done, head still drowning in questions, but the cracking of Will’s bones was growing louder and louder, his thrashing picking up again, and maybe Billy was right. Steve was already going to need therapy. He grimaced, made some sort of vague gesture, and headed to the door.</p><p>As soon as his hand was on the knob, Billy growled. The sound sent a jolt down Steve’s spine, electric currents through his veins, had him halted in a way that he knew should have been from fear, but wasn’t. He didn’t know why he wasn’t afraid, other than that his instincts were clearly shit—</p><p>“You can’t go out there,” Billy said.</p><p>“You just said—”</p><p>“I know what I fucking said. But if my dad is still roaming around—just lock the door and go into the bedroom, alright? And lock that fucking door too.”</p><p>“What?” Steve made a face. “No.”</p><p>“<em>Steve</em>.” Billy didn’t say it, he growled it, the same guttural, electric growl he made before that had Steve turning the lock and turning back to face the room, swallowing hard.</p><p>“Fine. But I’m not okay with this.”</p><p>“No shit.”</p><p> </p><p>It was almost too much to process.</p><p>No, it was too much to process. Steve found the bedroom at the end of the hall easy, clicked the lock closed behind himself after finding the light.</p><p>It felt like there should be something strange about Billy’s room, like animal bones piled in the corner or scratch marks on the walls, but his room was just a normal room. The walls were papered in a yellow floral pattern, something straight from the sixties, that Billy had tacked posters of bands and cars and busty women over, as if that was easier than buying wallpaper stripper and some cans of paint. All the surfaces were dusty, but the carpets looked vacuumed despite the dirty clothes tumbling out of the open closet. It was cleaner than Steve’s room.</p><p>Beyond the door, Will’s screams were growing louder again, garbled and mixed with the whining of an animal. Fear and disgust danced up Steve’s neck, had him hiking up his shoulders, but there was something else mixed in as well. Something like concern that sat on the back of his tongue, but more intimate, familial.</p><p>He was worried about Will, worried about everything, but this wasn’t that. This felt amplified, almost like it didn’t belong to him, but that didn’t make sense. He didn’t have enough water to wash the feeling down, so he rolled it around on his tongue, shuffled across the room to Billy’s milkcrate-mirror vanity, thinking about pills to swallow.</p><p>He was a mess. His sweat from dragging Will had cooled, but his hair still stuck to him in places, and exhaustion made the bags under his eyes purpled and dark. There was a streak of crusting blood across his left cheek, redder than the blistering heat coming from his arm.</p><p>With no better option, and not willing to put anything belonging to Billy on his face, he used his sweater to wipe off the blood as best he could, suddenly wishing he could have hidden in the bathroom.</p><p>A growl rattled the trailer, followed by a series of thumps. There was no fucking way Steve was changing his mind now.</p><p>He set his sweater on the milkcrates and twisted to look at his arm. <em>Mates</em>. He traced over the thin black line with his finger. He wanted to throw up, or suffocate himself in Billy’s bedsheets, and he wasn’t sure which was the worst compulsion.</p><p>There was a loud crash, loud enough to make him jump, and that was saying something, given the rest of the sounds. Steve cleared his throat like, “Are you okay?”</p><p>“Fucking peachy,” Billy growled back.</p><p>Steve thought about the night of their big fight, three years ago, and found it strangely comical that Billy had been the one to say that Steve was giving him the fucking heebie-jeebies.</p><p>That night, the Byers had a family emergency, Will had to be rushed to hospital, and Max hadn’t wanted to be found. Steve still wasn’t sure why he’d stuck out his neck to lie for her, when he didn’t know her, didn’t care. He’d only known her one day. He had just gotten the vibe that Billy was a bad guy, after a week of coaxing and crackling between them at school, and his gut had acted faster than his brain.</p><p>It had been three years, and Hawkins was too small to get away from old enemies. Steve’s relationship with Billy was more like a festering wound that never seemed to fully heal over, always getting filled with dirt and barbs.</p><p>Now it seemed like Will should be in hospital, but Billy was the cure, and Steve wanted to claw at his new markings to see if they’d come off like children’s stick-and-peel tattoos. <em>He</em> didn’t trust Billy. His <em>instincts</em>, his animal heart and lizard brain, trusted Billy with every fibre.</p><p>He wiped wetness from his eyes with the back of his sweater and pushed the window curtains aside just enough to look out, pressed his forehead against the pane. The porchlight was out. His eyes trailed to the bright streak of green and shadow from where his flashlight lay in the grass, seemingly the only beacon in the forest, in the whole universe. In this dark, the night sky bore no stars.</p><p>Will sobbed.</p><p>Maybe they weren’t real. Maybe they made no sounds.</p><p> </p><p>They were going to have to call someone, eventually. Billy knew it as he looked over his arms and traced the gouges dug into them from Will’s claws. Will’s mother would be worried eventually, or Max’s shitty friends. They were going to have to make plans about how to get Will home, how to make sure he wouldn’t be attacked for being in Neil’s property, how to keep his family from finding out.</p><p>It was almost two in the morning, and Will had finally settled, his glossy wolf form curled on Billy’s couch. The first change was always the longest, and the hardest. The curse needed to reject the human to make room for the beast. The pain from the bite was the easy part.</p><p>Billy had never been more glad to be a born wolf.</p><p>He stood in the bathroom and looked over his arms, sure they would be completely healed in the next half hour. The red around his new brand was still angry, though, healing slower than the rest of him. Maybe even his skin knew he’d done something that shouldn’t have worked and had gotten lucky.</p><p>Was this lucky? He hadn’t wanted to be an alpha.</p><p>He hadn’t wanted a fucking mate.</p><p>It had been so long since his mate line appeared that he’d started to think it was a joke, or a mistake. Now that he had confirmation that it was both, he really didn’t appreciate the punchline.</p><p>He could hear Steve’s breathing coming from the bedroom, could tell he was fast asleep, and that twisted something deep within him as well. His mate in his bed. He kind of doubted Steve would be under the covers, or would even have taken off his shoes, but it said something that he’d fallen asleep at all.</p><p>It said something that Billy wanted to go in and join him. Wanted to check him over for wounds, press his nose into Steve’s hair.</p><p>Steve was kind of one of the last people Billy wanted to spend time with, so. It was kind of fucking inconvenient.</p><p>It wasn’t <em>surprising</em>, exactly, that fate had taken time to choose him a match. The old stories all told tales about wolves who waited years, some with marks before they met, others gaining them upon first sight. A mark appearing on a child wasn’t a match, it was a promise.</p><p>Billy must have been some kind of really fucked up monster in a past life to have so many curses.</p><p>Before his mother left, she’d tried to convince him that his mark would be something good, a gift of sure love, a woman who would bring stability. It had been eleven years since his mother had lived with him. It had been six since she’d stopped seeing him often enough to make real predictions. She’d never wanted to admit that surety wasn’t the same thing as freedom.</p><p>Living in the woods, just out of reach from his father, was the first freedom he’d ever had.</p><p>Billy’s couch was too small for two hulking werewolves to sleep, so Billy shifted quietly into his wolf form and lay on the rug by the front door. It was no more comfortable than being human, but if he was going to sleep on the floor in his own home, at least he’d save some dignity doing it as a dog.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading, and I hoped you enjoyed!<br/>Big love to uncaringerinn for reading this over, because I think I owe her my soul at this point.<br/>As always, (I am unendingly cliche,) feedback is greatly appreciated!</p><p>The titles come from "Flesh and Bone" by The Killers.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. and what are you made of?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Dude, open the fucking door,” Billy said, giving the handle a firm jiggle.</p><p>Steve sat up and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but the sun was up now, peeking between the curtains, and his mouth felt full of moss. He rolled his aching shoulders and tried to ignore the way his bones seemed to itch, his chest seemed to ache. Tried to ignore the panic coiling up his throat as the world took form.</p><p>“Harrington?” Billy thumped on the wood, gave the handle another rattle. “Open up. Fuck. I gotta get ready for work.”</p><p>“Jesus,” Steve said, hoisting out of bed. “Give me a second. What time is it?”</p><p>Billy huffed and hit the door, like he was <em>tired</em> of Steve, like he hadn’t been the one barking demands at Steve all night. <em>Barking</em>, because he was a dog?</p><p>Christ.</p><p>Possibly angrier than before, Billy said, “Seven thirty. I’m gonna be late. Hurry the fuck up.”</p><p>Which also meant Steve was going to be late. Fuck.</p><p>As soon as the door was open, Billy was pushing into Steve’s space, pressing his chest to Steve’s retreating back as Steve turned to grab his sweater. Steve grimaced. He couldn’t resist the urge to elbow Billy in the ribs as he asked, “What are you doing?”</p><p>“What does it look like? Get out of my way.” But Billy was trying to go <em>through </em>Steve, rather than around him. While that wasn’t completely new, something felt different about it. More hurried, maybe. Or more like Steve’s skin had been rewired.</p><p>Billy looked clean and fresh, hair already sorted out and bare chest flecked with shower droplets. His jeans seemed shoved on as an afterthought, not even done up as he finally got Steve to move. The band around his arm had healed, where Steve’s was still crusty and painful.</p><p>There was something ticking at the back of Steve’s mind, like a clock, counting to something he couldn’t taste and couldn’t name. He pulled his dirty sweater over his head and pushed his hands through his hair. It clicked. “Where’s Will?” he asked.</p><p>Billy was shoving stuff around in his closet, didn’t even glance up, like, “On the couch. Totally comatose.”</p><p>“Is he okay?”</p><p>“He <em>survived, </em>if that’s what you mean.”</p><p>Steve wanted to argue—</p><p>“He’s going to have to come to work with me.”</p><p>“What?” Steve glanced down the narrow hallway, but couldn’t see around the corner. He grit his teeth, said, “He can’t stay away from home this long. Or miss school. We’re already going to need a really fucking good excuse for his mom. Someone is going to think he got kidnapped, or murdered. If someone sees him with you, they’re probably going to think <em>you</em> kidnapped him.”</p><p>Billy laughed, a shade too dry. “No one will see him with me. And he’s a teenager. If anything, the police are going to guess he ran away.”</p><p>“Will wouldn’t run away.”</p><p>“Trust me.” Billy yanked out a white tank. “They <em>always</em> think kids are runaways.” He said it like it was evident, <em>obvious</em>, like he’d seen this movie on TV too many times. Heavy scars licked up his back, scars Steve didn’t remember. Scars Steve felt like fresh brands.</p><p>“You don’t understand. He got lost in the woods for three days, about a year before your family moved here. His mom lost her mind. They nearly held a funeral for him.”</p><p>“Yeah, I <em>know</em>. People still talk about it. This town is fucking small. We just don’t really have a choice right now, alright?”</p><p>That made Steve pause. He rubbed his hands over his face, felt scared, and frustrated, and uncannily desperate. He said, “I guess if someone sees him with you, at least they’re going to know he’s around.”</p><p>Billy stopped squeezing the life out of his shirt and pulled it over his head. “I really doubt he’s going to be recognized.”</p><p>“His face has been on posters all over town.”</p><p>Something clattered in the living room.</p><p>Billy shrugged on his jacket, jutted his chin down the hall. With a deep breath, Steve moved towards the sound, slow, trying not to let the tension show in his shoulders. As he got closer, low whines started to pant, until Steve was met by the big, hazel eyes of a beast. A large brown wolf was trapped between the couch and the coffee table, head shaking back and forth as it cowered.</p><p>“Will?” Steve asked, maybe like a cracked whisper, or an unfaithful prayer.</p><p>The wolf stopped shaking and let out another whine.</p><p>Billy came out of the bedroom and made his way to the kitchen. “Careful. He knows who he is, but probably not a lot else right now. And he’s probably hungry.”</p><p>“Hungry?” Steve asked, not really processing as Billy opened the fridge. “Is he – he can turn back, right?”</p><p>“Duh. It just might take a bit. He’s gotta figure out how to do it himself. I’m giving him pointers.”</p><p>“How long will that take?”</p><p>Billy pulled out a plate covered in tinfoil and bumped the door closed with his hip. He looked as tired as Steve felt, worn thin like a ghost, even as he tried to hustle the conversation along, like, “Could be a few hours, could be a few days.”</p><p>The plate was crammed with cooked chicken breasts and rice, had Will fumbling towards Billy’s ankles before Billy had finished setting the dish on the floor. Will walked on his new legs like a confused fawn, made Steve’s chest ache something wretched and deep. He ate so quick that Steve was surprised he didn’t choke, all messy jaws and clicking teeth.</p><p>“People aren’t going to think it’s weird that you brought a huge dog to work?”</p><p>With a grimace and a glance to the clock, Billy shook his head. “I’m going to be the only mechanic in the shop all day. As long as he stays in the back, they won’t even know he’s there.”</p><p>“Alright, well,” Steve let out a slow breath. He didn’t want to see his reflection in the mirror by the door. “Give me a ride to my car and I’ll stash his bike at my place.”</p><p>Billy stiffened, looking suddenly like he’d missed a piece of the puzzle, limbs coiling. Words almost unthinking and instinctive, like, “You can’t leave.”</p><p>“What? I’m not fucking staying here, dude. I don’t even want to <em>be</em> here. I’m not getting fired over,” Steve waved a hand around the room. “I might already get fired for being late.”</p><p>“Daddy isn’t going to fire you,” Billy said, nearly sneered.</p><p>Steve laughed. Said, “Yeah, he would. Christ, I’ll just walk through the woods if you won’t drive me.” Then, an afterthought, “They <em>are</em> going to realize something is up if they find my car and his bike in the ditch.”</p><p>Billy seemed to mull that over too, eyes still flicking between Will, and the wall, and the door. “Fine, but you can’t just – you can’t go walking around town. If some of the wolves get the wrong idea—”</p><p>“No one is going to murder me in the middle of Hawkins. You said it yourself, it’s fucking small.”</p><p>Even so, Steve still felt on edge, itchy electricity raising gooseflesh along his neck and lodging stones in his throat. The danger of the situation was dawning on him in creeping waves. It was all still too much, the threat outside, the pulsing layers of his skin. How his core was starting to feel tilted towards Billy, like the earth around the sun.</p><p>“They’re going to know you’re my mate, just by smell.” Billy nearly growled. “And that I’m an alpha now. Working in their territory. I don’t think you know how fucked we are.”</p><p>“Oh, trust me,” Steve said, hoping the touch of angry hysteria in his voice was just his ears, “This all sounds pretty fucking bad.”</p><p>Will’s plate was licked clean. He lay on the floor between them, tongue rolling over his chops, tipping his head back and forth like he’d pitch in words if he had them. It was baffling, trying to overlay what Steve knew of the boy with this creature.</p><p>Billy rubbed his hands over his face, glanced at the door, seemed to sniff the air. Something solidified between his brows. In four laboured steps, he was chest to chest with Steve, hands heavy on Steve’s waist, nose ducked against his jaw. He backed Steve up until Steve’s head knocked into the window frame, body flush with the wall.</p><p>Will let out a soft whine.</p><p>“What are you doing?” Steve asked, hands pushing on Billy’s shoulders and heat creeping over his cheeks. Everywhere they touched felt open and raw, overwhelming – incorrect and not enough. He felt <em>right</em>. He felt repulsed. He felt <em>watched</em>.</p><p>He felt <em>turned on</em>, which took his breath the most, sent his brain reeling. It wasn’t like he’d never thought of Billy as attractive before, in passing, but – he found himself dipping his head towards Billy’s in return, hands tightening in Billy’s jacket. To push or pull away, he wasn’t sure. Billy seemed to know, dragged their stubble together and breathed in deep, like Steve didn’t probably smell like shit compared to Billy’s aftershave, the nicotine smoke clinging to his collar. He pressed his hands under Steve’s sweater and traced his ribs with his palms.</p><p>Steve’s breath caught, not a moan, but close. (It <em>could</em> be close, he realized, but there was no time to examine that power, how easy it would be to move his thigh between Billy’s legs, get Billy to rut against him.)</p><p>“You don’t smell enough like me,” Billy said against his skin.</p><p>Will seemed to scoff, which Steve would have echoed if his blood didn’t feel like syrup, sweetly clogging his senses and soaking into his gray matter, slinking down to his groin. Instead, he said, “Wolf thing?” like it was the dumbest shit he’d ever heard of.</p><p>“Pack thing,” Billy said, borderline resentful. Yet, his words were nearly kisses. “S’ worse if they can smell you’re my mate but haven’t been claimed.”</p><p><em>Claimed</em>. Steve tugged Billy’s hair, felt like Billy was ghosting over every inch of him, like Billy was <em>inside</em> of him, in his chest, his lungs. Rooting around in the back of his brain. But Steve wasn’t some fucking raffle prize. Before he could object, Billy was across the room and unlocking the front door, Steve’s hands oddly empty where they hung in the air.</p><p><em>Claimed</em>. Bullshit.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>, it’s so fucking late. Byers, you’re sitting in the back.”</p><p> </p><p>Finding Steve’s car wasn’t hard. Despite Billy’s long and twisting driveway, Steve had managed to go off the road not far from the trailer, the car’s front wheels tucked into a bed of amber and gold leaves.  Will’s bike was exactly where Steve said it would be, lying sadly to the left, slightly bent from being run over and caked with twigs and mud.</p><p>The whole scene was damningly close to Billy’s doorstep, filled his belly with lead. It had to be a message -- not that Billy could get his head on straight enough to figure out what the message was <em>about</em>. He was too busy taking deep breaths, adjusting his rear-view mirror, trying to shed the morning from his bones.</p><p>As Billy drove towards town, taking turns too fast, every foot away from Steve felt like an elastic band pulling and pulling, always on the verge of snapping. Maybe it was the newness of their bond. Maybe it was the fear, his <em>and</em> Steve’s, coating his insides and filling his nose like Steve’s sweat-smell, the spicy linger of Steve’s cologne mixing with Will’s dried blood.</p><p>He felt wolfish, restless, wild. Like he wanted to crash his car. Like he wanted to sink his teeth into Steve, lick him clean.</p><p>He couldn’t fucking <em>believe</em> himself. What the fuck was he even doing, pawing Steve all over like that? A simple hug would have been fine, but no, Billy just <em>had</em> to get his fill, <em>had </em>to see if he could make Steve quake. (Couldn’t stop himself from quaking too, mouth suddenly dry, limbs eager, cock filling in his jeans. Steve smelled like he might cream himself, and--)</p><p>They had a fucking audience. Will could probably smell their arousal as much as Billy could, even if Will couldn’t place the smell yet, and that was the icing on the fucking cake. Billy knew he was being fucking embarrassing. Shameless. Vulgar.</p><p>He’d probably scarred the damn kid. Like, Jesus Christ.</p><p>It was occurring to him that he didn’t want to crash his car, but rather wanted to turn around and crash into <em>Steve</em>, with his <em>dick</em>, and. He wasn’t some fucking animal, alright? He needed to control himself. He had shit he needed to do. A pack to look after.</p><p>A pack with a mate.</p><p>At the first stop sign, he grabbed a cigarette out of the carton in the cupholder, lit it up, and cracked the window just a smidge. This was going to be one of the worst days of his fucking life, and being torn apart all night by a splintering teenager was already looking like one of the highlights.</p><p> </p><p>The shop was quiet all morning, although the stream of clients was steady. Billy tried to replace his thoughts with oil fumes, only occasionally poking his head into the back to check on Will. He could be an alpha. He could do this.</p><p>Will looked lost, sleeping on the faded couch in the back office. Beams of hazy blue-grey sunlight spilled through the window and shifted around the room with the hour, never quite reaching his curled form. From the shop floor, Billy could hear every time he hobbled to his legs, turned around, huffed, and lay back down.</p><p>By lunch, the kid was no closer to pulling himself out of the wolf, but he blinked more attentively when Billy rumbled and growled his advice. He’d growl back, half-coherently, as if testing his language. It was a start. It probably wasn’t enough progress to make Steve happy, but when had Steve ever been happy? When had Billy ever <em>cared</em>?</p><p> </p><p>Will dreamed of agony, fever heat, his bones cracking and skin splitting as he begged for something, anything. There was a single-mindedness to his pain, an awareness of <em>belonging</em>, even as sobs wrenched from his gummy maw and rattled every muscle. He clung to his maker, knowing him, at the very least.</p><p>It was a dark dream, the sort that trauma liked to tuck away. Even in half-sleep, Will knew he wouldn’t be so lucky.</p><p>He dreamed. He woke. He slept. He dreamed. He woke.</p><p>He cautiously carded through what he knew about his surroundings and his life as he stared at the bright red door in front of him, head still resting on a couch he didn’t recognize as names and faces started to take shape. His name was William Byers, he was seventeen, and he was not a wolf.</p><p>His body burned, limbs snapping and chest heaving, <em>screaming</em>, until he was still and human, tucked in child’s pose, mind burbling to the brim.</p><p>Then he remembered everything:</p><p>Mike. His mother, the trees. The shape loping beside the rushing road, the teeth in his neck. Steve’s clammy hands, eyes that had seen a ghost. Billy’s blood and skin caked under his claws, the moon. Chicken and rice on a chipped ceramic plate, and how Steve had looked at the side of the road, watching them drive away.</p><p>Billy had left clothes on the desk nearby, and Will unfolded himself to tug them on. He stung like one big scab, like all of his skin was fresh and gooey and not yet hardened over. A confused hospital patient in the wrong ward.</p><p>Through the door, he could hear the scratching of a pen and Billy talking to someone, a woman, telling her how much money she owed. He sounded almost agitated, like he’d rather be anywhere else, and Will could relate.</p><p>There were a lot of things he needed to do, he knew, but the couch was already calling his name again, and his eyes felt too bruised to disobey. After one more nap, he would get Billy and call his mom. He just needed one more nap.</p><p> </p><p>After all the bullshit of the morning, Steve had miraculously only been half an hour late for work. It was still half an hour, it was still fucking <em>bad</em>, but his father had merely sneered and reminded him about his fragile job within the company, so it could have been considerably worse. He wasn’t fired. Yet.</p><p>He worried the same might not be true after Dustin burst into the office around three thirty.</p><p>Dustin hustled over to Steve’s desk with all the theatrics his teenage frame could muster, nearly shoving Tina from finance into the photocopier with his bookbag as he tore around the cubicles. “There you are!” he said. “We thought you died!”</p><p>“Why the fuck would I be dead?” Steve hissed. “Stop yelling. I’m at my job, exactly where I’m supposed to be. Where you’re <em>not</em> supposed to be.”</p><p>“I’ve left you, like, a million voice messages.” Dustin said, in what was possibly the loudest stage whisper of all time.</p><p>“But you didn’t try calling here?”</p><p>“I don’t have the number for here. What’s the point of an answering machine if you don’t answer it?”</p><p>On a normal day, this would have been a reasonable, if not frustrating, conversation. As things stood, Steve had been a little busy shoving Will’s mangled bike in his closet and showering like a madman in the fifteen minutes he was home to worry about the blinking light by his phone.</p><p>“You could have tried a phone book.”</p><p>“Will is missing!” Dustin yelled, drawing the attention of every head in the bullpen.</p><p>Steve yanked Dustin into his spare chair, mental wheels turning as he tried to come up with a response he could actually give. Everything he could come up with started <em>well</em> and ended with <em>werewolves</em>, so. He was kind of fucked.</p><p>What he ended up saying was, “Will is fine.”</p><p>“How can you possibly know that? You didn’t even know he was missing. You didn’t even get our messages!”</p><p>“Stop <em>yelling</em>. Look, how long’s he been missing?”</p><p>“Since last night. He was supposed to stay over at Mike’s, but then he didn’t show at Mike’s, and you know that’s weird. So then, Mike called me, thinking that maybe he’d come to hang out with me instead, and I obviously hadn’t seen him, so then he called Lucas, who said the same thing. Then, Mike called Will’s house, which he would have done first, but he didn’t want to freak out Mrs. Byers, which of course he did when he called her, because Will wasn’t there either. So then, she called chief Hopper, who said he’d keep a look out but said it was too early to officially file a missing person’s report. So then, we started calling everyone, and he wasn’t at school today—”</p><p>Steve did his best not to put his head in his hands, but it was a close thing. He needed a lie, and fast. “So, you’re playing hooky?”</p><p>“He could be <em>dead</em>, Steve! This is more important than algebra!”</p><p>“Okay, okay, I’m not disputing it, but he’s fine, really—”</p><p>“How could you <em>know</em>?”</p><p>Like a curse, or maybe a blessing, Steve’s desk phone cut of Dustin’s next tirade with a shrill ring. He snatched for it, praying to god it wasn’t the police chief, or worse, Joyce Byers. “Steve Harrington, accounting,” he said.</p><p>There was an intake of breath on the other end, then, “He’s changed back.”</p><p>Steve’s shoulders slumped. “Oh, thank fuck.”</p><p>Dustin made a face, mouthing <em>Who is it?</em></p><p>“Your receptionist is a bitch, by the way.”</p><p>“Noted.” Steve caved and rubbed his hand over his face, ignoring Dustin. “Do you need anything? Is he awake?”</p><p>“I think we’re good. He washed himself up and I got him some burgers. He just got off the phone with his mom. I’m supposed to drive him to the Wheeler’s once I close up, which I’ve gotta figure out.”</p><p>Steve knew in his bones that there should have been more to the conversation, more prying about Billy’s innerworkings, their arrangements, but he was too tired of arguing for one day. He asked, “What did he tell his mom?”</p><p>“Something about a fight with the Wheeler brat and hiding out with us to cool off. I don’t really think she bought it, but finding him seems to have calmed her down. Although, apparently not enough to leave him without adult supervision.”</p><p><em>Hiding out with </em>us<em>?</em> “I wouldn’t buy it,” Steve grumbled.</p><p>“Buy <em>what</em>?” Dustin finally piped up, nearly vibrating out of his skin. “Who are you even talking to? This is important, Steve, we don’t have time for this—”</p><p>“Christ. Calm down,” Steve said, phone away from his mouth for half a second before he asked Billy, “Is he in a talking mood? Because Dustin’s here, losing his shit and trying to get me fired, and I don’t know how to clean up this mess.”</p><p>There was a huff of breath on the other ended, some mumbled talking, and then Will coming through the speaker. “Dustin?” he asked, and he sounded about a thousand years old, about as tired as being ripped apart and woven back together would make a guy.</p><p>“One sec.” Steve handed over the phone.</p><p>Dustin, to his credit, only squinted his eyes as he listened to Will’s flimsy explanation. And when it was done, he set the phone in the cradle, sized Steve up, and said, “You could have just <em>said</em> that.”</p><p> </p><p>It was still going to be another hour before Billy got off the clock, an entire hour for Will to sit on the couch in the back room and sort through everything in his head. It was all a big mess, colours and sounds that needed order and shape.</p><p>Even though Billy had been periodically emerging from the garage to fill Will in on his new situation, his new body, Will still felt like his senses weren’t his own. That his situation wasn’t his own. None of it was real, or possible, and yet he could hear things he couldn’t before, smell things like he never could.</p><p>The engine fumes and clacking metal from downstairs were overwhelming, paired with the clicking of heels from each new client and the lingering smell of fast food. Despite feeling bruised and limp, he’d nearly yanked the bathroom door off its hinges when he’d been coordinated enough to drag himself there.</p><p>He wasn’t sure what he’d find when he looked in the mirror, but looking whole wasn’t on the list. He was ghastly and bloodied, pale as all get-out with dirt and gore caked into his hair, but his arm was perfectly mended. When he took off his shirt, there wasn’t a single indication that his shoulder had been gnashed out before, not even a little gouge or scar. All he had were the freckles dusting his shoulders from too many sunburns, and a thick black line curling around his arm.</p><p>Will was kind of against swearing, but <em>fuck</em> was his mom going to kill him when she saw that. Him, with a tattoo? Rebelling?</p><p>His brother had a bit of a rebellious phase, briefly, but Will hadn’t even entertained it. He was already the weird kid with big, spooked eyes. The zombie boy, back from the dead, who had spent too much time in the woods. Who had gone into the dark and been terrified ever since.</p><p>He supposed it was fitting, that he got attacked between the trees, but it wasn’t an I-told-you-so that he’d wanted to have. He just wanted to be normal. He’d always wanted to be normal. Likeable, but boring. Reliable. Trustworthy.</p><p>And he’d just fed his mother a pile of half-baked lies. Lies that wove together like the threads in a poorly made sweater, that could fray at the slightest snag and untangle until he was left bare. One lie would catch on another lie, would catch on another lie, and Will normally wasn’t a liar. There were very few things he kept to himself. And then, when he did lie, the things he’d lied about weren’t really <em>lies</em>, exactly, but more like truths with extremely vague omissions.</p><p>This time, he wasn’t setting himself up with half-truths he could sidestep if needed. He’d already created a series of snags in his very first fib, and he knew it. He’d spoken on the phone with his mother for all of fifteen minutes before she’d asked to speak with Billy again, and it was obvious she didn’t believe either one of them. It felt like he had gravel in his stomach, rocks weighing him down and grinding together behind his navel. Cracking. Vomitous.</p><p>The first snag was that Will had never spoken to Billy in his life. He’d seen Billy dropping off Max at places before, but they weren’t exactly buddies. The second was that, while Will <em>did</em> frequently talk to Steve, there was no perceivable scenario in which Steve would be hanging out with Billy.</p><p>Of course, no one could definitively prove who Steve did or didn’t spend his time with when Steve wasn’t with the rest of their friends, but it was well known that the rift between Steve and Billy had never mended right. When they met in passing, they didn’t even exchange head nods or polite smiles. It was going to be hard to convince people that they’d magically become friends, and Will didn’t feel qualified to come up with that part of the lie.</p><p>He didn’t know what to <em>do</em> with that part, or the truth of it he’d witnessed, or how thinking about it made him feel like he was collapsing from the inside, filled back up with something cold and dreadful, that made his cheeks burn and his chest ache. Billy hadn’t told him about what was happening with Steve, but Will was able to figure it out from what he remembered, what their brazen intimacy had meant, and.</p><p>Will wasn’t qualified to know what to say, and he wasn’t even entirely sure about what he thought, so he was trying not to think about it all together.</p><p>The third snag, and the most important snag — the snag that he couldn’t even start to explain to anyone, the snag that could make it all unravel — was Mike.</p><p>He <em>had</em> fought with Mike, a few days ago, but, well. Mike had already fixed it. He’d smoothed over the half-truth he’d called Will out on, had apologized and promised to believe it until it was something they could fold up and ignore.</p><p>Will had licked his lips when he told his mother it was fine for him to go to the Wheelers’ house, if she’d feel better about that, because he <em>wasn’t</em> mad at Mike, but. His mom had told Mrs. Wheeler what she knew, who had surely told Mike that version of events. Will was certain, without a doubt, that Mike was currently pulling loose fibres out of his bedroom carpet, wondering how he’d fucked up again.</p><p>And Mike hadn’t fucked up.</p><p>He’d just yelled at Will for not liking girls.</p><p>And if Will was still upset, well. Maybe, when they made up, Will had been lying about more than one thing.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This is where I make a joke about this taking a lot longer than I expected??<br/>Thank you for your patience, and for reading!<br/>Big love, as always, to uncaringerinn.<br/>And Big thanks and Big love to you as well! <br/>Comments and feedback (also as always) are greatly appreciated.</p><p>Feel free to hit me up on Tumblr @eternalgolfish. And hopefully the next chapter comes sooner?</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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